Pity the Living
by VoicesOffCamera
Summary: He was screaming, calling out for Fred, a request that had never gone unanswered before. His entire body shuttered violently as sobs wracked through him. All at once, he wasn't fighting Charlie anymore, instead collapsing against his oldest brother's form as he dissolved into hysterics. [A look at George's reaction to Fred's death in the Battle of Hogwarts]


_**Author's Note:**_ So, this is a bit of a first for me. There are exactly zero Marauders in this story! Okay, it's not really a _first_ , but it's literally been probably ten years or more since I've written a Harry Potter fanfic that didn't somehow involve the Marauders. So here's to broadening horizons!

I tried to keep this as close to canon as I could. The only thing that I took some small liberties on was Charlie's presence. He's not mentioned in the scene when Harry sees the grieving Weasley family, but he is around because he's mentioned in one of the other battle scenes. So I think it stands to reason that he was there somewhere.

Anyway, I hope you like it and please don't forget to review!

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 **Pity the Living**

" _The world had ended, so why had the battle not ceased, the castle fallen silent in horror, and every combatant laid down their arms? Harry's mind was in free fall, spinning out of control, unable to grasp the impossibility, because Fred Weasley could not be dead, the evidence of all his senses must be lying—"_

 _\- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows -_

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His feet pounded the stone floor, the contact sending shocks of pain up his tired feet, reverberating through his kneecaps. He barely noticed though, pushing himself to run faster.

" _It'll be faster if we split up. You take the north side and made sure all the passageways are covered and I'll take the south side."_

It had been a logical plan. They had very little time if the explosions that could be heard just outside were anything to go by. Neither of them thought about how they had never faced anything like this without the other. All they could think about was keeping as many students within this school as safe as possible.

" _Freddie!" George had called as Fred was already heading down the corridor. Fred paused and looked back at him. "Be careful."_

" _You too, George," Fred said with a grin, before turning and taking off, out of sight in a matter of moments._

George had run to the other side of the castle, barricading each of the known secret passageways into the school. By the time he reached the last of the passages on this side of the castle, the Death Eaters had already penetrated the school. Thinking back, he honestly didn't remember much about the battle he had been sucked into. He distinctly remembered having the thought _'I can't wait to tell Fred about this!'_ but looking back he had no idea what it was that had caused that thought.

What he did remember, even years later with crystal clear clarity that he cursed daily, was running at a full tilt sprint to the Great Hall.

At first, he had no conscious reason as to why he felt such urgency. It was only as he was weaving his way through the debris and passing people who were gathering up the deceased that it really hit him. There were nine members of the Weasley family that had been in the castle when the battle had started… with all the casualties that he had seen, he had to wonder if every one of them could have survived this massacre.

As George burst into the Great Hall, he saw that bodies were being carried in and respectfully laid out down the middle of the hall, waiting for friends and family to identify them. George stumbled as he rounded the corner, his balance still very much affected by his missing ear, and he had to grab onto the door in order to steady himself. As he fought for balance, he was already scanning the clumps of people scattered around the room until his gaze fell on an unmistakable group of red heads just over halfway down the hall. They were gathered around one of the bodies that lay in the middle of the hall.

It felt like a cold stone dropped into the pit of his stomach, sending an icy chill radiated out from his core to his extremities. He had to remind himself to breathe, gasping in air like a drowning man.

He was moving forward, everything in his peripheral vision fading away as he focused on his family, trying to take a headcount as he moved toward them. He spotted Ginny, feeling relief as his only sister appeared unharmed. Then he recognized Percy. He passed by his father – who was helping with the bodies – his eyes flitting passed him as he continued to catalogue his family. Who was missing? He didn't see Ron, but surely Ron would be safe with Harry. He spotted Bill and Fleur standing off to the side.

George swallowed hard, a painful lump forming in his throat. It was quickly becoming apparent who was missing.

Suddenly, Charlie appeared, moving toward him as he was approaching the group. George glanced down and could just glimpse through the legs of those who surrounded her, his mother kneeling on the ground.

That left only one person unaccounted for.

"No, no, no, no, no," George was mumbling, still moving forward.

"George… George, just wait a minute," Charlie was saying, holding out his hands as if calming one of his dragons.

But George didn't even glance at him, his eyes trying to see through the crowd, trying to see that he was wrong.

"No, no, no, no…" His voice was steadily rising in volume. Everyone had turned to look at him at this point; the same pain mirrored all of their glassy eyes. It was pain that he felt tenfold tearing away inside of him, like a Hungarian Horntail trying to claw its way through his ribcage.

He crashed into Charlie, his brother grabbing him around the middle and holding him back from the group. On some level, he knew what his older brother was trying to do, he knew that he was trying to protect him from what lay mere feet away from them. But the world was suddenly fracturing around him and logical thought was slipping through his fingers.

"No, no, _please_ ," George begged, fighting against Charlie's hold on him, desperate to see what lay in the middle of his huddled family, desperate to see that it wasn't who he thought it was.

But deep down, he knew the truth. He knew that if he was able, Fred already would have been at his twin's side.

"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, Georgie," Charlie was murmuring. His voice was wavering but he held tight to his struggling brother. "He's gone. There wasn't anything anyone could do. He's gone."

The words cut through George and he could feel something inside of his shatter like glass. He could even see the shimmering shards of himself falling almost elegantly to the floor. No… he suddenly realized that those were tears. His tears.

He was screaming, calling out for Fred, a request that had never gone unanswered before. His entire body shuttered violently as sobs wracked through him. All at once, he wasn't fighting Charlie anymore, instead collapsing against his oldest brother's form as he dissolved into hysterics. Had he been more composed, he would have realized that the rest of the hall had gone silent at his display of this immense grief.

It felt like he had been torn in half. Like this massive piece of himself had suddenly been ripped away, leaving a gaping wound that he feared would never heal. Since literally the day that he was born, he had never been separated from his twin brother for any significant amount of time. How was he supposed to go on? How was he supposed to live without Fred? How was he supposed to function as a whole person without his other half?

At some point he had sunk down to the floor, Charlie still holding him and rocking him back and forth much like he used to do when George was little. Both Bill and Ginny were kneeling with them now, murmuring words of support that were completely lost to him. With tears still streaking down his face, he took several deep, shuttering breaths, attempting to find some semblance of composure. It took several long minutes, but he finally found a small bit of strength within himself that allowed him to speak, his voice dragging painfully up his throat.

"I want to see him."

He felt relieved that no one seemed inclined to deny him this. He struggled to bring himself to his feet, but somehow his balance seemed even worse than usual and his legs didn't seem to want to hold him. Aided by Charlie on one side and Bill on the other, George had to be supported in order to make it the last couple feet to where his brother lay.

Fleur and Percy moved aside to let them pass. Before George could fully process the sight in front of him, he was inhaling sharply. His mother lay across his Fred's body, sobbing as she hugged him and stroked his lifeless face. Fred's eyes were closed, but there was something light about his expression, almost a ghost of a smile at the edges of his pale lips.

It was eerie. Fred and George had always been able to pick out the miniscule differences between their features. Looking at his twin brother while he had been alive hadn't been exactly like looking in a mirror, like many people believed. The term "identical" never really rang true in their minds, for when they looked at their own reflection and then looked at the other, it was like looking at a different person with similar features. His brother had a different energy than him, a different glint in his eyes, a slightly different tilt to the smirk of his smile.

But now, as he looked at Fred, lying unnaturally still in the middle of the Great Hall, George could not pick out any of those differences. His brother had both his ears, but other than that detail he had never felt more like he was looking in a mirror.

It just as easily could have been him lying there.

As Bill and Charlie slowly lowered George to kneel by their brother's head, his mother looked up at him. Her eyes were bloodshot and her cheeks were soaked with tears. But as she looked up at him, he suddenly saw her pain intensify and she collapsed upon Fred again with what seemed like renewed agony.

George honestly wasn't sure if it was because of the pain of seeing one twin without the other, or the pain of seeing her dead son's features in the twin sitting in front of her.

Tears were still falling steadily down his face as George stared down at Fred's lifeless figure. He knew he should be having more of a reaction right now, but the breakdown from a few minutes ago seemed to have taken a lot out of him. Now he just felt empty. He felt like the world had dulled around him, colors and sounds seeming to have quieted with the loss of his twin. It was like a bright light in his world had suddenly been extinguished, leaving everything darker and colder than it had been before.

And more than that, he suddenly felt overwhelmingly lonely, even sitting here surrounded by his family.

He reached down with one hand, only vaguely aware that he was shaking. With just the tips of his fingers, he gently brushed the hair off of Fred's forehead, feeling his ice cold skin. His shoulders felt heavy as he leaned forward, like there was suddenly a great weight pressing down on top of him, threatening to crush him into the ground. The rest of the room and everyone in it seemed to fade away as George was only aware of himself and his brother.

He placed a hand on either side of his brother's face and leaned down until their foreheads were almost touching. Oh how he wished he could breathe life back into his twin brother, oh how he wished he could trade his own breath for Fred's. An off centered light overhead cast George's shadow diagonally across Fred's face, making the other half look brighter by comparison, the light flickering slightly with the candlelight, almost as if flames danced across his face.

"What am I supposed to do without you, Freddie?" George mumbled, his voice raw with an agony that he couldn't even fully comprehend in that moment. His composure was crumbling once again as a sob tore through him. He squeezed his eyes shut as fresh tears fell from his face to his brother's. "What am I supposed to do?"

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 _"Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living and above all, those who live without love."_

 _\- Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows -_

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 **Diagon Alley II Forum Events**

 **The Fairy Tales Challenge Prompts:**

 _ **Fairy Tale (10pts) -**_ Cinderella - Write about rags to riches. Alternatively, write about George or Ginny Weasley.

 _ **Song: (10 pts each)**_ \- Beautiful Crime - Tamer

 _ **Picture: (10 pts each)**_ \- i. Ytimg . com

 **Total Points: 30**

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 **Challenge Your Versatility! Event**

Write a canon-compliant fic - 5pts


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